Looking for some go-to places to eat as a woman over forty? These are the best restaurants for weight loss.

We’ve worked with so many women in their 40s and 50s who struggled when they went out to eat. Every time they visited a restaurant, they felt they couldn’t get anything nice – or they gave in and couldn’t meet their goals.

These options don’t get you the results that you deserve, or allow you the flexibility to enjoy your life to the fullest. Yet, if you don’t know which choices will fit in with your nutrition plan – it’s easy to end up having too many calories.

However, if you know the right choices to make, you can enjoy eating what you like at restaurants and not feel deprived. You can still get the scales moving, drop a couple of dress sizes, and feel amazing in all your clothes in as little as 12 weeks!

In today’s blog, we’re going to reveal the best restaurants for weight loss for women over 40 looking to lose weight. You can also listen to this blog on our podcast.

First things first

Before we get into the restaurants themselves, it’s important to understand the overall strategy for eating out. Here are some things to keep in mind, depending on how often you go to restaurants.

If you go to restaurants once a month or less

If your restaurant visit is a one off – just enjoy it. Get right back to your healthy eating habits and exercise regime the next day, and avoid beating yourself up about it. You deserve it!

If you go to restaurants regularly e.g. every week 

If you eat out regularly, you’re going to need a strategy. Firstly, you need to manage the key three: calories, protein and fibre.

For calories, you want to not consume too many, but you don’t have to starve yourself. The main culprits are WADS foods: wheat, alcohol, dairy, and sugar. These foods disrupt your hormones and are loaded with calories.

Avoid sauces which are usually high in oil, and instead get them on the side. Limit alcohol too, as it’s almost as high calorie as oil.

For protein, make sure to prioritise the source. Get plenty to keep you full too. And for fibre, make sure to get a healthy portion of veggies with every meal.

The best restaurants for weight loss

Ultimately: there are no best restaurants! ​​Most restaurants have a wide range of choices – from really good ones to really poor ones. There’s always a good choice on the menu, you just need to have the motivation and knowledge to want to make it.

However, there are some which don’t really have any healthy choices:

The worst restaurant choices include:

  • Fish and chips: It’s all deep-fried!
  • Burger restaurants: These are loaded with calories

It’s less about the restaurant and more about the choices you make. For example:

  • KFC
    • Bad choice: The zinger tower burger meal, large with full fat coke
    • Good choice: A rice box, which is under 500 calories and 26g protein
  • McDonalds
    • Bad choice: Big tasty with bacon, medium chips, and medium fizzy drink
    • Good choice: A cheeseburger and small chips with a water, which is half the calories
  • Indian restaurant:
    • Bad choice: Chicken tikka masala and rice
    • Good choice: Chicken or prawn shashlik and boiled rice
  • Fish restaurant
    • Bad choice: Fish and chips
    • Good choice: A seared sea bass, noodles, or vegetable heavy options
  • Pizza Express
    • Bad choice: Romana Pollo Forza pizza (so many calories!)
    • Good choice: The Leggera pizza, which is loaded with veg

Those are just a few ideas to help with restaurant choices.

Inside our Fit Over 40 programme, we work personally with all our clients to make healthy choices whilst eating out. Combine this with everything else we do, and our clients drop 1-2 dress sizes every 12 weeks!

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